Monday, June 23, 2008

Well if not, you are right! This video is a very smart viral marketing initiative from Cardo Systems, a provider of bluetooth headsets and it reached more than 6m eyeballs (this number includes the different versions of the video as well as the videos of people trying the experience to show it is a scam!). In addition, Cardo got a lot of press for this initiative - so, overall great PR at minimal cost and this shows how web 2.0 technologies are starting to change the way companies market their products...

... but it also shows the power of "Sticky" ideas. I am sure that months from now, if people mention this video, you will remember it.

Chip Heath, a Professor at Stanford GSB and Dan Heath, a consultant from The Aspen Institute, wrote a very interesting book, "Made to Stick" to explain why some ideas survive and others die. As they went through dozens and dozens of successful ideas, they identified six common principles:

PRINCIPLE 1: SIMPLICITY

PRINCIPLE 2: UNEXPECTEDNESS

PRINCIPLE 3: CONCRETENESS

PRINCIPLE 4: CREDIBILITY

PRINCIPLE 5: EMOTIONS

PRINCIPLE 6: STORIES

I found the book and this framework quite useful and if you look at the popcorn idea of the video, it fits this framework quite well...so may be it works!

About me

Philippe Botteri, Accel Partners

French native, I have been working in the technology industry for more than 15 years, both in Europe and Silicon Valley. I started my career in 1998 helping large companies with McKinsey, before moving into venture capital in 2006. Some of my past investments include CornerstoneOnDemand(Nasdaq: CSOD), Eloqua (Nasdaq: ELOQ, acq. by Oracle),Criteo (Nasdaq: CRTO) and Bizo (Acq. by LinkedIn).

I moved back from Silicon Valley to London in 2011 to Join Accel Partners and focus on investments in Cloud Computing, Big Data, Security, Mobile and Online Marketplaces

Beyond technology, I like everything with a board on snow, water or land